Proverbs chapter two. We're going to be looking at
the last two verses, Proverbs chapter two. And here we have
two distinct people. Two distinct representatives
of every single individual in the entire world that's ever
been or ever will be. We have the upright, called the
upright and perfect, and we have the wicked transgressors. That's the only two kinds of
people there are. The upright, the perfect, the upright that
are the perfect, and the wicked and the transgressors. The scripture tells us that there
is none good but God. There is none that seeketh after
righteousness. There is none that understandeth,
no, not one. There's none righteous, no, not
one. There's none that seeketh after God. They are all gone
out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is
none that doeth good, no, not one. If that is true, and it
is, there's none good, no, not one. Then who are the upright? Who are the perfect? Scripture
never does contradict itself, does it? I'm thankful that it's
simple. I'm thankful that he wrote his
book simple. That a simple person like me, and most of you are
much smarter than I am, we can understand it. We can understand
the simplicity of his word. Who's the upright? Who's the
perfect? There's only one. and his name
is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is who I want us to look at
tonight, but let's read our text first. Proverbs chapter two,
verse 21, for the upright shall dwell in the land and the perfect
shall remain in it, but the wicked shall be cut off from the earth
and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it. That word rooted
means plucked up, plucked up. Recently, We were working, as
some of you probably already started playing around in your
gardens, whether it be your flower gardens or maybe you're pruning
some things a bit late like we were, probably shouldn't have
done that, but we plucked up a tree, or a bush is what it
was, a butterfly bush. And my wife says, I want to transplant
that somewhere else. And I said, well, we have to
get all the roots up then. If it's going to stay alive, all
the roots have to come up. Well, my forgetfulness, negligence,
I don't know, whatever you want to call it, that bush died. I didn't plant it somewhere else.
It dried up completely. First thing you notice is the
leaves started wilting, but it rained a bunch during the time
it was plucked up, but it still wasn't rooted, wasn't grounded,
wasn't in the dirt where it needed to be in order to soak up that
water. Sunshine was hitting it. But
it wasn't to its benefit. Sunshine was drying it up, drying
it out, and it died. There's no saving that. This
is what the Lord's talking about here when he says, I'm gonna
pluck them up. Whatever foundation they think they have, whatever
life they think they're living, he says, it's gonna end. I'm
gonna pluck them up and out, but, but the upright shall dwell
in the land and the perfect shall remain in it. How do the upright
remain in it, rooted and grounded with the foundation of the Lord
Jesus Christ? This land that he's talking about
is not the United States of America. It's not Pennsylvania. This is
the promised land, the land promised to Abraham, Canaan. And this
is, we know that everything in scripture has a spiritual meaning
and a physical meaning, don't we? It's a spiritual meaning,
the land that he's promised to who? His people. I go to prepare
a place for you. The upright will dwell in that
land. The perfect shall dwell in that land. If I go to prepare
a place, I'll come again and receive you unto myself that
where I am there you may be also. Paul said if we had God only
in this world, we would be of all men most miserable. Wouldn't
do us any good to be the upright in this land and the perfect
in this land only. That wouldn't do us any good,
would it? No, he's talking about the land
to come. He's talking about glory. He's talking about heaven with
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now here we have Two distinct
different types of people. The words given, I want to give
us the definitions of. First word is upright. It means
straight. It means correct. It means right. Second word we come to is perfect.
That means without blemish, complete, and whole. Then he tells us about
the wicked. They are the ones that are guilty
before God. That's the definition of wicked,
guilty before God, sinful. Sinful. And then we have the
transgressors. A transgressor is one that's
transgressed against God's law, but it also means deceitful.
Those that are deceitful. Who are they deceitful against?
Men think that they're fooling God. Men believe that they have
done enough to please God. They believe that they are, that
there'll be no judgment. There'll be no justice enacted
upon them because of the life that they live or the choices
that they've made. And they're deceiving themselves, aren't they? They're
not deceiving the Lord. He says that one of these individuals
will dwell in the land and remain in it. The other one will be
cut off and uprooted. One will be cut off and uprooted.
He tells us that heaven and earth shall pass away. So he can't
be talking about this earth. In this earth, there's so much
trouble. So many trials that we face,
so many things that we see that are ugly around us, but we're
never more grieved than when we see the sin that's inside
of ourselves. So thank God he didn't just say heaven or it's
gonna pass away. He says, but my word shall not pass away. It'll be forever. And what is
his word? Call his name Jesus for he shall save his people
from their sin. What's his word? Well, the scripture
is very clear that All of his promises, all the promises of
the Lord are yea and amen. Everything that he's promised
his people, that's his word. And the Lord Jesus Christ himself
is his word. Now this is talking about the
resting place for God's chosen people. And I would like to bring
to our attention, the scripture calls it the land flowing with
milk and honey. You heard that before? What does that mean? Well, that's what heaven is. What's sweeter than the honey
of his voice? What's? What's there's no other source
of life other than his word. That's the milk, isn't it? Men.
Men talk about. Our gospel, I've heard somebody
tell me about our gospel, how that we preach election. We preach
the Lord does all the saving and they're like, well, yeah,
that's the meat of the gospel and I'm like. That's the milk. That's the foundation. That's
the if you miss that you've missed everything. People, they won't
believe it. That's the sweet milk. That's
the life giving sustenance. The Lord Jesus Christ himself
is that honey and that milk. That's the land that we're longing
for. To hear his voice without end, to sit in peace like Mary
was, sitting at his feet. We desire to sit there and worship
him. Worship him as he deserves to
be worshiped. Worship him as we long to worship.
We want to worship him, don't we? Really, we want to worship
our Lord and Savior. We want to be able to express
our love for him in a perfect way. We will one day when we
awaken his likeness. This is what his people desires.
Christ, our milk and honey. The question does remain here,
who are the upright and the perfect mentioned here? If they're the
only ones that's going to live forever, if they're the only
ones that's gonna be in the place God prepared, I must be upright
then. I must be perfect then. That's the standards. Is anyone
perfect in and of themselves? So many times, Men will say those
things, but then they'll have something to do it to make the
Lord please with them. No, we gotta start there. That's
the foundation. Are you perfect? Because before
you can even approach the throne of God, you must be perfect. Can't approach unless you're
perfect. Can't approach unless you're 100% righteous. Can't
be one spot or one blemish. Otherwise, you know what that
throne demands? Judgment. Justice immediately on the spot.
can't approach unless we're perfect. The Lord requires, if the requirement
of salvation is perfection, and it is, to have a perfect, sinless
life, completely spotless before God's law, without blemish, who
can be saved then? Because I'm a sinner, and you're
a sinner. Who can be saved then? If the
Lord requires perfection, I can't produce perfection. The Lord
requires sinlessness. That's all we are is sin. Who
then can be saved? God's revealed that we're lepers,
hasn't he? That we're dead dog sinners. So what hope do we have
then? Well, Psalm 25, eight says this. Good and upright is the
Lord. He, therefore he will teach sinners
in the way. Good and upright is the Lord.
Who's the upright? He is. Good and upright is the
Lord. Therefore, what is the therefore,
therefore? It's there because he is upright
and he is good. And that's the reason. It's the
reason that he saved his people. That's the reason he teaches
sinners. He said, I came not to call the
righteous. Somebody said, I'm a sinner. He said, I came not to call the
righteous. No, I didn't come to call the ones that believe
that they're righteous in and of themselves, that they're good
enough for God, that they've done what they needed to do in
order to secure salvation. They've prayed a prayer, they've
walked an aisle, whatever it may be. No, I didn't come to
call them. I come to call the sinners. Does that give you hope? It does
if you're a sinner. If the Lord's shown you and I
that we're sinners, when he says those words, I came not to call
the righteous, but sinners to repentance. That's me, that's
me, the sinner, the chief sinner. Matter of fact, that's what Paul
said to Timothy, 1 Timothy 1.15, this is a faithful saying worthy
of all expectation. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners of whom I am chief, of whom I am chief. Who are the upright? The Lord
Jesus Christ and every single person that he died for. Every
single sinner that he bore the sin for on the cross of Calvary. Every single person that the
Lord elected before time that Christ Jesus shed his precious
blood for. They are the upright. They have been made perfect in
the righteousness of the Lord. Who were the perfect? Well, those
who were placed in Christ before the world began. Turn with me
to Ephesians 1. That'll be the only place that we turn to tonight,
and then we're gonna come back to Proverbs 2. Let's read the first seven verses
of Hebrews 1. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
by the will of God, to the saints that are Ephesus, and to the
faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace be to you and peace from
God, our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.
according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
him in love, having predestinated us into the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. He told us what he did. He said,
this is what I'm going to do. This is what I've done. And it
was all having predestinated us into the adoption of children.
Why? According to the good pleasure of his will. He said, I'm going to do this.
And then he did it. And then he said, this is what
I've done for you. That's all right there, isn't it? To the
praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted
in the beloved. Who's the beloved? Well, certainly
it's the church, but he's talking about the Lord himself. We've
been accepted in Christ. That's the only way we can be
accepted. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness
of sin, according to the riches of his grace. God predestinated
those whom he chose to eternal life in Christ Jesus before the
first second ever ticked, before time ever began. He adopted those
individuals. Not only did he adopt us, That
wasn't enough. Understand that. If he just adopts
a bunch of sinners, we still can't be with him. We still have
to die. His judgment still has to come
to pass. His justice has to be satisfied.
So he not only adopted us, but he made us accepted in Christ. He redeemed us as well. There's
a message in that, just the adoption, the acceptance, then he adorned
us with the righteousness of Christ, didn't he? That's three
A's. That's what he did for his people.
That's what he did for his people. He redeemed his people in the
fullness of time. God sent forth his son, born
of a woman, born under the law to redeem them that were under
the law. He redeemed his chosen predestinated sinners that by
his blood alone By his grace alone, according to his everlasting
mercy, they would be made the righteousness of God in him. Understand who I'm talking about.
I'm not talking about the person who lives a good life. I'm talking
about the most wretched, most vile sinners. The ones that he
chose. The trophies of grace that he
chose. He's made them perfect without
blame before God. You know why we're the worst?
We're the Lord's people. You know why we're the worst?
Because we've been made alive to the knowledge of sin. We see
our sin. We loathe our sin. We sorrow over our sin and grieve,
not as we ought to, not as not pleasing unto the Lord. The Lord
Jesus Christ is the only one that truly sorrowed and grieved
that pleased the Lord. But we've seen our sin. We know When we, I was talking
to somebody this past week, we don't sit here and look down
upon each other because we've seen ourself as the chief center
ourself. We don't look and say, well,
you're doing this. And so I'm better than you. No, it's, we
get, that's why we get along so well, the Lord's people. We
don't, we don't have a, uh, our nose isn't up in the air. No,
our heads down into the same savior needing, needing mercy. Lord's made his people perfect
without blame before God being in Christ Jesus. Proverbs 14
says the house of the wicked shall be overthrown, but the
tabernacle of the upright shall flourish. We're talking about
dwelling in a land. We're talking about dwelling in a place. The
Lord Jesus Christ, he said, the wicked shall be overthrown. Well,
who's the wicked. You and I both know this is the
wicked heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately
wicked. Now, we don't have time to point our finger at somebody
else. The Lord's shown us that we're the wicked, and we say,
Lord, overthrow this. Overrule this flesh. Lord, give
me a new nature, one that's pleasing before you. And he says, I have. It's the tabernacle of the upright.
It's the Lord Jesus Christ. He conquered it, didn't he? Conquered
our flesh. We couldn't. He did. I go back
to Proverbs 2. Verse 21, for the upright shall
dwell in the land and the perfect shall remain in it, but the wicked
shall be cut off from the earth and the transgressors shall be
rooted out of it. Who are the upright? Who are
the perfect? These are the titles that are
reserved for one person, the Lord Jesus Christ. And the only
way that you and I can have those titles if we are in him. It's
the only way. The only way we can be perfect,
the only way we can be upright, the only way that we can be righteous
is to be found in Christ Jesus, not having our own righteousness,
which is of the law, but the righteousness which is through
the faith of the Son of God. Deuteronomy 9.5 says this, not
for thy righteousness or for the uprightness of thine heart
dost thou go to possess their land, But for the wickedness
of these nations, the Lord thy God doth drive them out from
before thee, that he may perform the word which the Lord swear
unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But do I not have
the same wickedness as those who are around me, in me, and
of myself, and of my flesh? Not if you're in Christ. He put
all that sin away before the Father. Those that are his are
kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation. He keeps
his people from themselves. He saved us from ourselves. He
keeps us from ourselves. He does that. Isn't that glorious? Lord, don't leave me to myself.
Who maketh us to differ? The Lord does. If I was to ask
you, what is your fear? What is your fear? Whenever you
hear this, I'm always drawn to the word wicked and transgressor.
We see ourself that way. We always see the Lord as being
the perfect and upright. That's how it is. What's your
fear? That I would be left to myself. That I would be left to myself.
That's our fear, isn't it? That I would be utterly cut off
from God. That he would just leave me alone
to believe the lie. Judas and Peter followed the
Lord both for a lengthy time, didn't they? Judas and Peter
both cast out demons, didn't they? Judas and Peter both healed
people in the name of the Lord, didn't they? Judas and Peter
both sat at the table with the Lord. Judas and Peter both had
their feet washed. But Judas was not the Lord's.
Judas was not loved by the Lord Jesus Christ. The only difference
between Judas and Peter, whenever you see what transpired, whenever
Judas sold the Lord for the silver, Peter went and warmed himself
by the enemy's fire and yet denied the Lord, denied affiliation
with him. So in essence, they did the exact
same thing. Peter just didn't get paid for
it. You see that there's nothing
in Peter that wasn't in Judas except one thing, one thing. The Lord Jesus Christ said, Satan
hath desired to sift thee as wheat, but I have prayed for
you, Peter. He didn't say that to Judas.
I have prayed for you, Peter, that your faith fail not. The
only difference between Judas and Peter was that Christ Jesus
prayed for Peter. Christ Jesus loved Peter. Christ
Jesus shed his precious blood for Peter. No matter what Peter
did, the Father always viewed Peter as perfectly righteous.
Christ took the sin of that denial with him to the cross. Christ
bore that sin of denial that Peter did and put it away. Peter's never denied the Lord.
Did you know that? Not in the eyes of God, it's gone. It's
gone. We must never look at ourself
and think that we see something in ourself that is keeping ourself
or that is the reason that we're not fallen by the wayside or
the reason that we are this or that. We are kept for one reason
and it's because of the grace of God. But for the grace of
God, there go I. He took all the wickedness of
his people unto himself and put it away. The Lord laid upon him
the iniquity of us all, all of his elect. He intercedes now
for his people as our substitute surety. He intercedes. He ever
liveth making intercession for us. What does that mean? That
means he pleads the blood on our behalf. If you ask any true
believer what their hope is, it's not gonna be, well, I know
that I'm not Judas. That won't be the hope of the believer.
I know that I'm not, they won't say that. They might say, I hope
I'm Peter, at least, you know, Lord, don't leave me to myself.
What's my hope though? Well, there'll never be a drop
of attention drawn towards themselves, will it? We'll never, if I ask
you what your hope is, is it I've done this? No, no, that's
not my hope. Well, I've been baptized. No,
that's not my hope. Well, I've, no, that's Christ. His finished
work on the cross of Calvary, what he accomplished, that's
my hope. That's my only hope. What he did, if he didn't save
me, I can't be saved. If he didn't do it all, I'm lost. I'm forever lost. You ask a believer
their hope, they'll tell you, There'll never be an ounce of
praise drawn to their flesh. There will be zero confidence
in what they do. The true believer looks to Christ
in everything as their acceptance before God, their only hope,
my only acceptance before God. The believer looks to the Lord
Jesus Christ as our only justification before his throne, for his holy
throne. The believer looks to Christ
as all their wisdom, all their righteousness, all their sanctification
and redemption. I was reading an article today,
and I've got maybe a paragraph into it. I've disciplined myself
that when it starts getting bad, quit reading it. Rather than
reading the whole article, it doesn't benefit me. The only
thing it does is make me mad. Why read it? So I'm doing better. Just thought I would tell everybody
that. I quit reading it after the first
paragraph because it said, and this just frustrated me. It literally said, well, you're
not transformed whenever you're first saved. The Lord changes
you a little bit at a time. He changes you a little bit at
a time and he makes you better and he makes you better and he
makes you better until one day you're right for the picking
and he calls you to glory. Did you know that's a lie? That's
a lie. That's not true. Paul's confession
was regression. It wasn't progression. He said,
no, I'm a, I'm not worthy to be compared with the, with the,
I'm the least of the saints. I'm not worthy. Then he said,
I'm not worthy to be compared to be a, one of the believers.
And he said, I'm the chief center. He said, Oh, wretched man that
I am not that I was. No, Christ is our sanctification
right now. No, we're upright and perfect
right now because of what Christ did, not that he's still working
on me to make me what I ought to be. No, he's we're already
there in glory with him as perfect right now. He's there's nothing
else for you to do. Look to the Lamb, look to the
Lamb of God. How do I know if I'm upright
and perfect? I wanna ask us a few questions in closing. How do
I know if I'm upright and perfect? I wanna know. The only ones that
are gonna abide in the Lord's land is the upright and perfect.
I gotta be upright and perfect, and it's not gonna come from
me. How do I know? Am I looking to my works or to
Christ's as my acceptance before God? That sounds like an easy
question, doesn't it? Do you know how easy it is for
our flesh to look at something? It loves to get some kind of
glory. Every chance it gets, it, look at me, look at me. Am I resting in any work that
I have ever done as my acceptance before God or the finished work
of Christ alone? If I'm resting in Christ alone,
I'm upright. He's made me thus. I'm perfect
because he's made in Christ. That's what he says. Am I looking
to my choice, my choices, or am I looking to his choice? How
do I know I'm upright? Am I counting on my flesh? That is within my flesh, Paul
said, well, it's no good thing. Am I counting on my flesh or
am I counting on the precious flesh of the Lord that he laid
down freely for his people? How do I know if I'm upright
and perfect? Are you looking to your sin? Are you looking
to your sin? Am I looking to my sin or to
the blood of Christ that put away that sin? Seeing sin is
not salvation. Am I looking to my sin? Well, I'm a sinner. I recognize
I'm a sinner. That means I'm a believer. No, that just means
you can read the law. That's all that means. I can
read the law. It tells me I'm a sinner. No, are we looking to our sin
or are we looking to the precious blood of Christ as our only hope
for that remission of sin? Are we looking to how we're living
or are we looking to his life? How do I know if I'm upright
and perfect? Are you looking to your failures? Think about
that. How many times we wonder, we
dwell on our failures. Are you looking to your failures
or are you looking to His successful redemption? Look to Him, don't
look to self. We let ourself down all the time,
don't we? It's really a war, isn't it? It really is. Paul
talked about the warfare that's going on inside of us. It's the
old man and the new man. We have this old dead corpse
that we're carrying around every day. That's what it is. We have
a dead man strapped to our back that doesn't honor the Lord and
anything that does hates everything about God. We have a new man
that just believes and thanks be to God, though the outward
man perisheth, the inward man is renewed day by day. How is
it renewed? The milk and honey of the precious
Lord Jesus Christ. Are you looking at your failures
or the successful redemption of the Lord? Are you looking to yourself for
righteousness or are you looking to his righteousness? Has he
been made your righteousness? Last question I have is, are
you looking to your weakness? Are you looking to his strength,
his power? The power of God into salvation,
they that have been enabled to see Christ as all. They that
have been able to see Christ as all by faith are the upright
and the perfect, and they shall dwell in his land forever. Let's pray. Father, cause us
to be found in Christ, for we know that we are not upright
and perfect unless we are in him. In his name we pray, amen. In closing, let's turn to number